Legal News Articles - Financial

San Jose, CA: In the wake of an Equifax data breach that occurred in July but reported this September, attorneys at Oakland, California- based Scott Cole & Associates have filed a lawsuit seeking class action status against the credit reporting agency. This digital disaster could potentially affect up to 175 million Americans, and millions of people worldwide, including the U.K. and Canada.

Atlanta, GA: Only a nut would sue for $35. Banks count on that when they boost overdraft fees through a technique known as “debit resequencing.” The 2010 changes in banking law that were part of Dodd-Frank have failed to kill the practice. It persists even after a $35 million class-action settlement over Union bank excessive overdraft fees in 2011. One of the banks’ newer schemes to keep this revenue source producing has been to force consumers out of class-action lawsuits and into costly individual arbitration. Only a nut would arbitrate over $35.

Camden, NJ: A former employee of Cooper Health System in New Jersey has filed a whistleblower healthcare fraud lawsuit after the paramedic claims he was fired for raising concerns about poor treatment of patients, potential billing fraud and other allegations related to regulatory violations.

Bridgeport, CT: An overdraft fees class action lawsuit appears to be breaking new ground, and creating even bigger waves in the pool of complaints over excessive bank fees; namely, re-ordering transactions in such a way as to force an account into overdraft, thereby affording the offending bank the opportunity to pocket additional fees.

Minneapolis, MN Disabled workers sometimes get a rude awakening when the workplace disability insurance policy they thought would help them maintain their standard of living in the event of injury or illness abruptly ends.

Washington, DC: In January, 2015 Capital One resolved a class action lawsuit over excessive bank overdraft fees for $31.7 million (In re: Checking Account Overdraft Litigation, case number 1:09-md-02036, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). And that Capital One excessive overdraft fees lawsuit was not unique: a rather large cross section of the banking and credit union industries have been called to the litigation carpet for excessively high fees, re-ordering transactions to generate even more fees, and so on.

New York, NY: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been relentless in its pursuit of wrongdoers in the financial industry. Since 2011 it has recovered $975 million in enforcement actions ranging from elaborate investment schemes to financial advisors that work to benefit themselves rather than investors.

San Francisco, CA: The US Department of Labor has ordered Wells Fargo to reinstate a former branch manager whistleblower that the bank fired for reporting bank employees who where secretly opening new accounts for customers without their knowledge or consent.

San Francisco, CA: One of the largest health insurers is back in the news, allegedly up to its old tricks of bad faith insurance tactics. Three Unum policy holders claim that their disability benefits were wrongfully terminated, according to their lawsuits. All the complaints were filed in California in June.

Washington, DC: A consumer protection report has found a correlation between the banks that customers complain about most and the amount of revenue from overdraft fees and insufficient funds (NSF) those banks collect.